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Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

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Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would Oregon necessarily be against this? This seems like a great way to (a) get rid of nut jobs from the state legislature, and (b) get rid of a bunch of counties that sinkholes (financially speaking).

Honestly I see this failing in Oregon not because anyone is particularly against it, but because the Republicans in the state legislature have no power and the issue would never be brought to the floor.

True.

But for the sake of argument, say they somehow can. What then? Would they actually go through with it?

I suppose it goes to their own personal careers. Would they have a better chance of personal success in the new Idaho legislatures or in the current Oregon one?

Seeing that the population of Oregon is 4.2M and the new Idaho would be relatively unchanged at 1.7M (these counties combine to 0.06M people), I'd suppose they would want to stay with Oregon as the prestige and career flexibility would be greater in a more populous and richer state. Whatever the new districts of new Idaho would be, these new-comers would still be a small fraction of the legislature.

The only way I can see that they would have better careers in new Idaho would be in national politics. And then they have to fight amongst each other and the old Idaho politicians, all of whom would be jealous at the attention these new-comers would have. Unless one of them is especially gifted/lucky, I'm not seeing that as a high likelihood.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#432
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New power lines are almost never the cause of wildfires. Old, poorly-maintained lines are. For example, the Camp fire that killed 86 people was caused by a hundred year old line that hadn't been serviced in decades. For miles of line around the origin site of the fire the C-hooks looked like this: https://i.imgur.com/r42KsHR.jpg

Total installed powerline length vs population is a problem. Whether they're new / old or well / poorly serviced is just a difference of a few decades. If there isn't money to service old lines now, then there won't be money to service formerly-new lines in 30 years.

It's not a question of insufficient funds. They spent five billion dollars on shareholder dividends while corporate documents show they were completely aware the equipment was breaking down and posed a wildfire risk, and they broke multiple state regulations to do so.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you already know how silly this comparison is. Replace White with Han Chinese and Black with Uyghur if you need help. It's not exactly a surprise when the repressed and discriminated against minority sees race as a more important issue. Equating racism without considering the context of who holds what power is simply disingenuous.

I used exactly the same argument you did, with equivalent data. You're now trying to wiggle out of admitting equivalent conclusions. That stinks of gross and explicit doublethink.

You're so goofy. I love it. We should hang out sometime.

Edit: I apologize for doing this as an edit but HN won't let me reply so here it is. I've made my points and you've made your's. You haven't brought up any new points and you've been ignoring mine previous ones that already anticipate your response. So let's trivialize it because it's not going any further. Seriously though. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole of the United States was founded on slavery Citation needed. I'll be curious how you show that each state was "founded on" slavery, and how that was true from the inception of each of those states.

Slavery was the chief issue preventing the colonies from creating a united government. At first, the Articles of Confederation created a shell of a government that quickly fell apart leading to the constitutional convention and the creation of the US Government as we know it today. At the time, slavery was the most contested issue when writing the current constitution. It's important to recognize almost all of the ec…

You said, "the whole of the United States was founded on slavery." That statement is what I take issue with. If you feel like amending that, to something like "some parts of the United States leaned heavily on the use of slavery", I would agree. It's the extreme claim of your first statement that I take issue with.

In general, you've limited your claims to some of the original 13 states / colonies. That's a far cry from "the whole of the United States". I'd like to see your sources for each of the other 50 states, that they were each founded on slavery.

Not only that, but you seem to be defending your very general statement by only looking at a very limited time frame. Were each of the states so heavily dependent on slavery that it could be said that, e.g., Wyoming or Wisconsin or even Alaska were founded on slavery?

I don't think so.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#435
post #385
post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how this would be a 'bad precedent' or 'problem'. Why is keeping arbitrary borders established over a hundred years ago more important than better representation and sortition?

The balance of seats in the Senate

[deleted]

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Same with emergency services, they were waaaayyyy better in my (very small and poor) hometown in terms of response times (or responding at all), and I can't see how that would cost more than running the same services here. It matters on a per capita basis. What's the ratio of emergency service workers and their salaries to residents in your small and poort hometown compared to the bay area? Also infrastructure (road…

I'll agree with the latter point, but I think having less per-capita emergency services is a bug as opposed to a feature. I'd be willing to bet it's a matter of the land/buildings/employees necessary to run such services are far more expensive in areas where land/labor/everything is more expensive.

There are less absolute services available in rural areas and less services per capita and that lower level of services still costs more per capita to maintain, because for that one ambulance to serve ten people it had to travel 200 miles and took ten hours instead of having ten ambulances serve four people each in two hours.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I see this failing in Oregon not because anyone is particularly against it, but because the Republicans in the state legislature have no power and the issue would never be brought to the floor.

True. But for the sake of argument, say they somehow can. What then? Would they actually go through with it? I suppose it goes to their own personal careers. Would they have a better chance of personal success in the new Idaho legislatures or in the current Oregon one? Seeing that the population of Oregon is 4.2M and the new Idaho would be relatively unchanged at 1.7M (these counties combine to 0.06M people), I'd sup…

> I'd suppose they would want to stay with Oregon as the prestige and career flexibility would be greater in a more populous and richer state

I don't think this really tracks. Being a minority state legislator sucks; you're basically completely ignored. I think most politicians would much rather be in the majority party in a smaller state than a minority in a larger state.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used exactly the same argument you did, with equivalent data. You're now trying to wiggle out of admitting equivalent conclusions. That stinks of gross and explicit doublethink.

You're so goofy. I love it. We should hang out sometime. Edit: I apologize for doing this as an edit but HN won't let me reply so here it is. I've made my points and you've made your's. You haven't brought up any new points and you've been ignoring mine previous ones that already anticipate your response. So let's trivialize it because it's not going any further. Seriously though. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Aw, you can't come up with a rational response. I'll admit, trivializing is a decent follow-up when you've got no arguments left.

EDIT: I'll answer with an edit also. For my part, it seems like my response went unanswered and you didn't really anticipate it, and I do think the argument has places to go. However, I do wish you the best, and I hope you have a wonderful day too.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traditional conservative dogma requires the belief that poverty or misfortune follows from an inherent moral failing, never from circumstance. Therefore criminals cannot be reformed, homeless cannot be helped. The only solution is to remove them.

Of course traditional conservative dogma also has extremely strong private safety nets. Just look at Utah and the mormons. Or the Amish. I mean, I understand that many people do not understand this, but I have found that atheists and the unchurched cannot comprehend just how substantial most church support programs are. In my old parish, my wife and I practically lived at the place and when we had our first baby, we…

What percentage of Christian ministries are actually providing these services? You don't say, just that some are. I would say that this is far from widespread phenomenon.

Are Christian ministries actually providing comprehensive healthcare, or only those procedures that they morally approve of?

If conservatives are the "real" humanitarians, why is there more poverty, more untreated diabetes, and worse healthcare in conservative states?

Why should the availability of healthcare be contingent on your religious beliefs?

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you should definitely read up on how farming subsidies came about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_policy_of_the_Uni... Food got so stupidly cheap it makes no sense to grow it in the US anymore. So farmers demanded that people in cities pay for their lifestyles out of our taxes. And then they go around being entitled about it. I've had enough of farm welfare queens. Get farmers off of welfare and let…

>I've had enough of farm welfare queens. Get farmers off of welfare and let us import food from places that can grow it competitively. If we can't make up the other 85% from somewhere else, that's great, then US farmers will show that they can grow food at a reasonable place without welfare. >I never said subsidies aren't necessary: I don't know how you can infer that point from what I wrote. Didn't you just tell us…

You know you've replied to multiple people here, right?
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